Monday, April 2, 2012

Due to some unseasonably good weather, the allotment days are well and truly back on. Well, they were until it got a bit cold and damp today. Anyway, the point is that I've been lovingly absorbed in the following allotment activities (I love a good bullet point list):

Weed clearing

Weed clearing

Harvesting some super delicious purple sprouting broccoli which I managed to keep alive for almost a year. Da-nah!

Weed clearing

Standing with hands on hips wondering what on earth to do with all the horsetail. The general consensus is to keep digging it out.

Working on my much coveted 'allotment-sun-tan'. Honestly, a few extra freckles and some mud and everybody thinks I've been away to some distant land.

Weed clearing

But finally, and most excitingly, I've started to plant some seeds. As my favourite vegetable, broad beans were top of the list. Is 24 broad bean plants too many for one girl? Unlikely! I think I might plant some more...

Also, I've planted some sunflowers because I love them. In my mind, they will look something like this:

But in reality, seeing as I only planted 20 and chances are they'll get eaten by mice in the greenhouse before I can plant them out, there may be a slightly different scene to behold.

But in the meantime, I'm taking this planting gig very seriously and I even have an allotment diary in which I am noting when I've planted things, what varieties they are. All that sort of stuff. And today I went all the way to Broughty Ferry in order to get the seed potatoes I wanted (pink fir apple) and I went crazy buying onion sets. There'll be no stopping me now.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

So I've been going slightly fat quarter crazy, but there is something just so satisfying about making little bundles of fabrics that should clearly be friends.

I got a bit photo-happy there! They are adorable, aren't they? I would love to get a quilt project on the go, but inevitably I just don't know where I'd find the time at the moment - study, study, study! Oh and I've started an exciting new job. That's a nice start to the new year.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

I'm writing purely because I have a massive and impending to-do list, you know, important things like:

Write my Christmas cards (they are all made... and to the classic Kirsten template of the smaller-the-cuter-the-better)

Start on my next 5000 word essay (I have taken out of the library a pile of books almost as tall as me. Which maybe isn't that many. And when I say 'taken out of the library' I would like to confirm that I did not steal them. Only borrowed. If you try and 'take' them proper an alarm goes off and it is really quite embarrassing)

Start/finish the mildly alarming number of sewing projects which have a Christmas deadline

TIDY THE HOUSE

Instead, I can think of only infinitely more fun things to do, like make a cup of tea, pluck my eyebrows, write a blog...

In other news, I finally succumbed and put my heating on after the day I realised that I could see my breath in my living room, and that I was also having to wash a lot more socks than usual (see previous post if that seems a bit odd). And as much as I hate to admit it, it is a lot nicer coming home and feeling able to take my coat off. Also, I was incredibly proud of myself as my boiler had some pressure issues, and I was able to sort them without the help of plumber or indeed any man. All a single girl needs is Google. Please don't rain on my parade by telling me that Google is a male creation (is it?).

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Just had a lovely flurry of activity listing new items on my Etsy page. Whilst making soup. Ah the joys of multi-tasking.

So I've been a bit in demand the past few weeks with custom orders, which is possibly one of my favourite things in the world. It's quite egotistical really, however I'm not usually one to blow my own trumpet so somehow having someone like what I do enough to ask for an item just for them is a nice little confidence boost. Toot toot.

First there was the pigeon pillow which literally flew all the way to Canada:

And then a couple of orders for personalised fabric baby blocks:

So much happy!

And just as well I've had the happy sewing to distract me from the bleedin' cold. I don't mean like the common cold. I mean the temperature in my flat has been dropping to alarmingly low levels, and being the miser/mentalist I am, I've been resisting putting my heating on. It all started in October when I thought that to save myself some pennies, I would not put my heating on til November. And then I got to November and really thought I was doing ok and reckoned I might being able to make it to December...

Which I have! I've now entered some kind of stubborn/self-righteous zone where I just can't bring myself to get the boiler fired up. Meanwhile, things are getting desperate. Yesterday I was wearing a blanket as a dress and today I'm wearing four pairs of socks.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Something tells me from today's mini-harvest at the allotment that my veg won't be winning any prizes just yet...

But thankfully I'm not quite competitive or obsessed enough... The essay is still not finished, however a girl has got to take a little break once in a while and I've been feeling a bit guilty for neglecting the allotment of late.

I had visions of waist high weeds (again) - instead I have waist high lettuces. I don't know what's got into them, they are just bog standard lettuces which have somehow got unbelievably tall. What puzzles me more is that the slugs have never been interested in them, and my experience so far is that the slugs LOVE EVERYTHING. Take your eye off your packed lunch for a second and its gone. I planted 5 - FIVE - sturdy courgette plants one afternoon, I popped back to see how they were getting on less than 24 hours later and they were GONE. Not a leaf or a root left. Obviously, I'm not bitter about this experience at all.

Anyway. I don't even really like lettuce so my sister took one of the big 'uns to let her chickens peck at it.

Apart from the lettuces, we had a very brief flurry of activity at the allotment due to some cold drizzle and an unimpressed niece. I am now the proud (?) owner/builder of the most ramshackle composter in Dundee, if not the world. I suppose that's what happens when two women and a baby are left to make a purposeful structure out of some corrugated iron, crumbling old window frames and a kitchen sink. Notice how I don't have a photo to show...

Sunday, November 6, 2011

I have an essay due and so I thought to myself that this would be the ideal time to write my first blog post. Right? WRONG. Very wrong.

It would be ok if I actually knew how to juggle, but I can quite honestly say that I haven't got a clue. It was fairly manageable trying to work full time and be a part time craft (and daft) person. And then I took on an allotment full of weeds. And then it seemed like a sensible idea to go back to university part time as well. And then it occurred to me that it might be nice to have a blog too. Err...